Mindful Eating Facilitator Training and Certification

MC-701Mindful Eating Facilitator Training and Certification

Offering Mindful Eating is a great way for MBSR teachers to expand their course offerings to individuals who have recently completed an 8-week MBSR course, or are simply looking to learn more about mindfulness through the doorway or “pain point” of stress-eating. Apply Now

Mindful Eating Facilitator Training and Certification (MC-701) is a live online program consisting of a multi-step process to ensure facilitators are teaching from their own experience. Facilitation centers around helping individuals identify their habit loops that perpetuate stress and emotional eating. Thus, facilitators must be able to identify their own habit loops (see The Craving Mind for more) with regard to eating and other aspects in their own lives. By completing the Eat Right Now (ERN) program as a participant and attending weekly live web-based groups, trainees will begin to learn the facilitation process.

Dr. Brewer has developed several apps to deliver digital mindfulness therapeutics at the point of contact where we develop and perpetuate habits. Over the past several years, using a higher education model of learning termed a “flipped classroom”, he has tested how best to help individuals change their relationship to eating by combining at-home, app-based training (5-10 minutes of daily training delivered via an app) with group-based classroom support (weekly groups facilitated by an instructor). This flipped classroom – “lectures” delivered at home, and “homework” done in class – allows for students to have more continuous, bite-sized training delivered in context while freeing the classroom facilitator to tailor classroom time to meet students’ needs: the in-person curriculum is the students’ struggles, challenges and successes from their daily lives. The flipped classroom brings together the best of both worlds - training and support - in the contexts that optimize their efficacy.Additional advantages of the flipped classroom include rolling admissions and course length that can be tailored to each individual. Students can start the training at home for a few days and then join the group the following week. If they are out of town on a certain date they won’t miss a particular week’s topic (as may be the case with a standard 8-week MBSR program), and in fact can bring the training with them via the app. Also, they can begin with a commitment of only 1 month (which is often less daunting) and at the same time continue their training for as long as they keep benefiting (as compared to finishing after 8 weeks and needing to continue practicing or finding “next steps” on their own).

Facilitators-in-training (FIT) will join an online, group-based supervision (Step 1) centering first around what they observed in the web-based check in, and eventually around classes that they begin facilitating on their own (Step 2). As part of this course, instructors Dr. Judson Brewer and Robin Boudette will teach the science underlying the habit loop (psychological and neurobiological).

Course Requirements

Access to Eat Right Now (ERN) app. Download the app from www.goeatrightnow.com any time before applying for the program to ensure that this training is a good fit.

Applicants

Who should apply?

Anyone who has met the prerequisites and wishes to begin facilitating Mindful Eating groups

Preference will be given to individuals who have an identified population with which to begin facilitating (e.g. mailing list of previous MBSR participants, access to a community center population etc.) and have a background in mindful eating

Step 3: Applications for Certification will be made available after successful completion of Steps 1 and 2

*Step 2 is only required for individuals who will begin facilitating their own groups in November 2017 and wish to continue Supervision, working toward certification as a facilitator for the Eat Right Now program. This step can be postponed until a later date based on when live group facilitation begins.

This is an official Page of the University of Massachusetts Medical SchoolCenter for Mindfulness (Mailing Address)  55 Lake Avenue North, Worcester, MA 01655
Questions or Comments?
E-mail:
mindfulness@umassmed.edu Phone: 508-856-2656